Ben Affleck wins best director prize for Argo at DGA awards

Ben Affleck has scooped yet another gong for Argo – this time winning the top prize at the Directors Guild of America awards.

The 40-year-old star took home outstanding directorial achievement in feature film at the ceremony last night – and became the third person since 1948 to pick up a DGA award without an Oscar nomination.

Accepting the award, he said: ‘There was a point in my life where I was really down, really confused, I didn’t know what was going to happen and I thought “I should be a director!”. And so I did it, and I worked very hard.’

Last year’s winner, The Artist director Michel Hazanavicius presented Affleck with his prize.

Affleck added: ‘I worked really really hard to try to become the best director that I can be.

‘I don’t think that this makes me a real director but I think it means I’m on the way.’

Usually, the winner of the DGA prize goes on to win best director at the Oscars but Affleck missed out on a nomination although he has since dominated other award ceremonies including the Golden Globes, Critics Choice Awards and PGAs.

Affleck was competing against Steven Spielberg for Lincoln, Kathryn Bigelow for Zero Dark Thirty, Tom Hooper for Les Miserables and Ang Lee for Life of Pi at the DGAs.

Other winners last night included Lena Dunham for her hit show Girls, Rian Johnson for Breaking Bad and Malik Bendjelloul for the documentary Searching for Sugarman.